Blockchain Conferences In San Francisco Highlight New Direction For Technology

Blockchain conferences are much different than Bitcoin conferences. Whereas Bitcoin conferences might have been heavy on theoretics about liberating the world’s unbanked, the blockchain conference has a much more generalized focused. Many new participants in the space are uninterested in wildly shaking up the status quo.

Blockchain Conferences Reveal New Horizons

This has been on display early in the year. In San Francisco, two recent blockchain conferences features some of the most influential financial technologists in the space. The first, hosted by Lighthouse Partners, featured banking names interested in the prospects of blockchain for their industry. John Bertrand gave a talk from England in which he focused on how the blockchain could bring value to the banking industry.

The second, the San Francisco Blockchain Conference, brought together technology industry’s and banking industry’s minds in a discussion of the possibilities and anticipated research directions for blockchain technology.

Much more than at Bitcoin conferences, Blockchain Conferences focus on how distributed systems such as blockchain will be plugged into pre-existing technology and other services, and vice versa. John Wolpert engaged the audience in a thought experiment about what individuals were seeking to do with the technology. Some expressed a desire to test the limits of smart contracts, others discussed their desires to tap the potential of blockchain in anti-money laundering. Interestingly, many people desired increased privacy. A consistent theme at the conference revolved around the notion of how the blockchain can be adapted to pre-existing banking and regulatory systems. One of the most paper-intensive duties of the the financial industry is the maintenance of know your customer and anti-money laundering databases. Many blockchainers believe this can be solved with technology inspired by Bitcoin.

Nevertheless, Bitcoin was almost a bad word at the conference. Tony Vays injected a seemingly anarcho-capitalist view into the discussion. There was even a spat between Vays and Chris Kitze, where Vays argued governments were collapsing and would lose control while the free market would create freer systems. Chris Kitze argued governments had a certain agenda, and seemed capable of carrying it out for the foreseeable future. Of the spat, Kitze later told Bitcoinist.net:

“I enjoyed hearing from Tone and appreciate his thoughts,” Kitze said. “In fact, I don’t disagree with most of his thoughts and I think they are entirely valid for private, non-fiat related currencies.” He clarified that Safe Cash focuses on legally compliant and very practical approaches needed by businesses that touch money.

“We think Bitcoin is great and yes, we do also value freedom, privacy and people’s ability to use their private property as they see fit,” he said. The company fully supports Bitcoin payments with their Unseen project.

“It’s too bad we couldn’t have a full discussion of private currencies due to time limits and it was outside the scope of this meeting,” Kitze said. “Private currencies will likely be every bit as valuable as the widespread legal tender currencies of today. Bitcoin is now widely enough used and it can be exchanged for fiat and those two factors probably move it out of the private currency realm.”

The conference, overall, was considerably pitch heavy. Young startups looking for partners in the heights of technology and finance.

Matt Slater detailed some of the use-cases for blockchain technology: collateral management, wherein collateral payments and margin balances for bilateral contracts are managed in real time; OTC Post-Trade Processing and Settlement, similar to the work of Overstock and t0. As Hedgy explains, this functions to “Trigger auto-settlements when terms are met or collateral is deemed insufficient.” Like Factom, Hedgy also seeks to unveil a platform for land titles and mineral rights.

“Intel is excited to give the R3 members the opportunity to evaluate our software in advance of its open source release,” Kelly Olson of Intel’s New Technology Group said. “Intel processor technologies like Intel® Software Guard Extensions (Intel® SGX) provide unique capabilities that can help enable improved security and scalability for distributed ledger networks.”

Ben Blair discussed Teachur.co, a way to design what might be called a smart course. The company wants to make academia more efficient, and the blockchain could be a way to do this. The blockchain could also bring academia to less fortunate countries.

Teachur seeks to build lessons and courses so people can earn degrees in hours or days instead of months. They want to build a stripped down degree program to made education more cost-effective.

Michael Terpin, BigAngels Chairman and bCommerce Labs managing partner, unveiled interesting information about the Satoshi Roundtable, where at, apparently while Bitcoin Core discussed they would not be interested in scaling soon, people at the conference placed buy orders for Ether, the native currency of Ethereum.

The feeling of the meeting reflected a Bitcoin vs Blockchain sentiment. Chris Kitze, Safe Cash CEO, even said Bitcoin probably wasn’t a legal value transfer model. What is needed? As many participants agree, a layer for anti-money laundering and know your customer procedures.

Both conferences had the feeling that a new industry has started, inspired by Bitcoin, but not beholden to the nascent digital currency.

What do you think about the recent blockchain conferences in San Francisco? Let us know in the comments below!

Manchester, UK (February, 20, 2016) – Would you like to work with CoinFest UK? We need interested Bitcoin and digital currency volunteers! We need these volunteers to help us cover both of the event days, but please remember Friday the 8th will be an extra long day from 9am to 10pm. We want anyone who is interested in cryptocurrencies and wants to help cryptocurrencies grow.

Disclaimer: This is a press release. Bitcoinist.net is not responsible for this company’s products and/or services.

We are looking for a small group of independent volunteers to help us provide these services. If you don’t want to volunteer but offer cryptocurrency services for beginners and think you can help at our event please get in touch.

Volunteers get to work with an enthusiastic team dedicated to making CoinFest UK the best it can be. In addition to the experience of making cryptocurrency history, volunteers get the first chance at swag, help us steer the event and will be well fed through the event! We will make sure volunteers who show their dedication will be a part of our future events and will have a say on how our event develops.

Hello again! Checking in here from TNABC Day 2 in Miami. It was a lot of fun writing yesterday. I’m going to try and keep the style the same today; honest, open reporting about what’s actually being discussed here at a Bitcoin conference. There’s a lot more going on here than you may think! While the media often turns their attention to huge shows like DevCon and ComicCon, these Bitcoin conferences fly relatively under the radar.

TNABC Day Two: Getting Started

How are there only ~300 people here? Surely, there are more people in the world who could benefit from attending a Bitcoin conference, who want to go and who have valuable ideas to contribute. I am hoping that this recap today entertains, provokes thought, and also encourages you to attend a Bitcoin Conference in the future. This is the best place to actually learn about Bitcoin: In person. Sit back and relax. Here we go.

Morning

[8:10 AM]: Wake up to the third of many snooze alarms going off. We had intended to wake up at 7:45 AM. Oh well.

[8:11 AM]: Stumble over to Sanna. Tell him to wake up. Am going off of literally 1.75 hours of sleep after I was up very late last night writing my “In Defense of Greek Life” post for my blogging campaign (#100DaysOfBlogging) on Medium (follow me on Medium! @ryanstr).

[8:15 AM]: Nothing better than a shower in the morning to wake you up. This has literally been one of the busiest, craziest weeks of my life (was co-best man for a wedding in Chicago last weekend, too).

[9:10 AM]: Get dropped off by Sanna somewhere near 12th street and 3rd avenue. It was somewhere not far from Brickel. Yes, the streets here in Miami actually are grid-intertwined with “Avenues” on one side and “Streets” on the other. This was very confusing. Thought through how a blockchain could help remedy some of the problems presented here around naming streets, identifying houses, identifying who owns what and where that property is.

[9:11 AM]: Saw a turf soccer field surrounded by a fence next to a busy intersection where I was dropped off. Got really excited by this. Took a picture of it. Wondered why they don’t have something like this in Ann Arbor, particularly that spot right next to Lorch Hall. Start walking towards the James L. Knight Convention Center.

[9:14 AM]: A large bus passes by in the rain. I start thinking about how cool it would be if a city like Miami started accepting Bitcoin on all their public transportation systems. This requires software upgrades and integration with the blockchain. Guessed in that moment that this may not happen in Miami until 2026.

[9:15 AM]: Saw parking meters not being used and slanted over in a decrepit manner. Thought how Bitcoin and a blockchain could alleviate the problems of knowing where to park, having to run out to your car to put more money in the parking meter, and of having to drive and park your car in the cold (in Chicago).

[9:20 AM]: Noticed how low the gas prices were. What effect does this have on the price of Bitcoin?

[9:39 AM]: Sitting outside of Capital Grille in Brickel, marveling at the luxurious nature and grandeur of all the swanky high rises which surrounded me. Watched as the bridge opened across the river/channel that divides the convention center from where the Capital Grille is in Brickel.

[9:46 AM]: People waiting for the boat bridge to close, so that they can walk across, are getting impatient. One man tries to start biking across the bridge even though the gates to access the bridge are still closed. This gave me a flashback to the time when I was in San Diego last month and witnessed someone try and climb under the train outside of the convention center where ComicCon is held. This person nearly died, as the train started up with an intensely loud screech just as this person was crawling under the train.

[9:52 AM]: Arrive at Day 2 of TNABC. Right now, it’s a lot less crowded than yesterday.

[10:00 AM]: Speak with Julio of Bitcoin.com about tips to improve my writing. Discuss how Bitcoin.com is different than Bitcoinist.net.

[11:55 AM]: FINALLY am done with my “In Defense of Greek Life” post on Medium. I initially wrote this out here as “In Defense of Bitcoin.” That is now a post for another day. For today, time to get back to Bitcoin and TNABC, Day 2.

Afternoon

[12:07 PM]: Start talking with the team at BitMain. Get into a deep discussion about Bitcoin Mining. Get to see an up-close look of what an actual bitcoin miner looks like. This was no communal mirage, like what happened in 2013. This was a multitude of miners, sitting right in front of me, right before my eyes.

[12:14 PM]: Start talking to Hayden Gill about bitcoin mining. We unearthed some amazing insights that I had not previously internalized. This made Jordan Birnholtz’s “Bitcoin is a donut” blog post from March 2013 make that much more sense. We discussed trends in mining currently; how the mining difficulty has risen by so much since September 2015, and how this was also around the same time that the Bitcoin price started rising again. We discussed how bitcoin mining is at the core of Bitcoin, at its heart. Without these seemingly useless computers, there would be no Bitcoin, no accountability or trust over the web without having to rely on centralized institutions, no TNABC. Mining is the culmination of 40+ years of computer science research. It is the physical manifestation of both the Bitcoin software and Bitcoin itself. Miners are crucial, they are insanely important to the future of Bitcoin.

[12:25 PM]: Hayden and I still talking here. We discussed how the United States Dollar equivalent value per day generated by Bitcoin miners confirming transactions from blocks remains essentially the same, all the time. Whether the price of Bitcoin is at $100, $200, $400, or $2,000, either way the price will create an incentive that will either attract miners or it will not. The electricity costs involved in running a Bitcoin mining operation are now huge! Therefore, depending on the price of Bitcoin, individuals will be tempted differently to either turn their miners on or not. Similarly, only some people went west in the 1840’s, during the Gold Rush, which was based out of San Francisco.

[12:26 PM]: There are certainly parallels to Bitcoin with this analogy here, too. Because of this, the difficulty of Bitcoin adjusts to the decisions made by individuals as to whether or not they want to use their miners. With this, there is a tradeoff; mine or not mine? Increase the difficulty and lower the amount you receive in raw-bitcoin per day by mining more (which will also drive up the price), or lower the difficulty on the network by not-mining, therefore increasing the amount in raw-bitcoin you’ll receive when you do solve a block (and the subsequent lowering of difficulty will also help lower the USD/BTC exchange rate). This is a really difficult tradeoff to internalize; it took me about 3.5 years of following Bitcoin closely until I really got it. Until I spoke with Hayden at TNABC, Day 2, in Miami, Florida. It took me 3.5 years to really realize that the USD equivalent value per day generated by miners remains relatively constant. For this reason, bitcoin mining is a zero-sum game; the profits for mining operations in the long run will trend towards zero as the market becomes more and more saturated and competitive* (*as the difficulty increases, oddly, which is a paradox, too).

[12:39 PM]: See Marco Santori walk by out of the corner of my eye. Only knew that this was him because Hayden said so.

[12:40 PM]: Learn that large bitcoin mining operations are starting to find creative ways to form partnerships with energy companies to leverage inefficiencies in the electrical grid. They do this because it is actually mutually beneficial for both the mining companies and the energy companies. At night, energy companies often have to power down large parts of their power grid, which is costly, takes time, and is simply inefficient. Now, to address this, bitcoin mining operations are using this electricity to mine, which it seems lower the costs associated with the power grid. This is a symbiotic and mutually beneficial relationship, one which provides miners with cheaper electricity, encourages the running of more full nodes, and also does not put as much stress on the grid from turning it on and off. On and off. On and off. The cost of electricity is one primary reason why the price of oil does indeed impact Bitcoin’s price (which is a Spectacle, a distraction from the underlying aforementioned realities about Bitcoin Miners).

[12:50 PM]: Lunch time. Bump into Tone Vays in line.

[12:51 PM]: Get a tuna sandwich for lunch with chips. Talk to the friendly woman working the cashier. Joke with her asking if other people here have been joking about how the conference center in Miami does not accept Bitcoin. She was not amused, and just smiled instead.

[1:40 PM]: Heading into Bitcoin related panels now.

[1:47 PM]: I lied. Just spent 7 minutes of bliss jamming to @BroJoeDroJoe. Now heading into the big room with the Bitcoin related panels.

[1:56 PM]: I lied, again. Spoke with Mia Molnar of Genesis Mining. Learned that she is organizing a music event in Munich. Reached an interesting insight about differences in music culture between Europe and America. Thought to myself how cool it would be if a smart contract controlled the possibility to reward bitcoin to a crowd or a musical artist based off of the sound patterns present and crowd noise. Felt excited that LivelyGig is helping to make this a reality. Mia also handed me a “paper wallet,” which at a Bitcoin Conference is hilarious and an amazing marketing tool.

[2:10 PM]: Finally actually-in the big auditorium with the panels. The gentleman speaking, Jerry Brito of Coin Center, made a comment that around how any attempt to regulate Bitcoin technology is futile; the cat is already out of the bag. The technology of trustless distributed systems is already out there. If we want to talk about “regulating” Bitcoin, then we need to do this in the context of regulating Bitcoin as a currency, which is fundamentally different than regulating Bitcoin/blockchains as a technology.

[2:13 PM]: Jerry: “The U.S. is the leader when it comes to regulation.” The US issued the first guidance on how a regulation applies to Bitcoin, in 2013. And the Bitlicense was the first measure passed of its kind anywhere in the world. The US is a leader in the regulatory community on many issues, so it would make sense to see it here.

[2:16 PM]: Jerry: The Bank Secrecy Act is a crucial act in the history of the United States of America. It is a law that requires information about all parties involved to be obtained from any country in the world. This are known as AML checks, Know-Your-Customer (KYC), and Suspicious Activity Reports (SAR). In enforcing this law, OFAC (Office of Foreign Asset Controls) has a legal responsibility to identify the identity of all parties involved. This law was designed for a world of wire transactions, not Bitcoin. Using Bitcoin, which is inherently-semi-secretive, poses challenges to identifying the information of and location of the parties involved. Our approach when regulating Bitcoin companies is often, in ways, like trying to fit a peg into a round hole.

[2:21 PM]: Jerry: Consumer Protection is a very important area for the Bitcoin community to work hand-in-hand with the legal community to make progress on. Right now, for almost every form of investment, consumers are protected. This earns these associated forms of investment respect among the legal community and increased usage among more mainstream users more largely.

[2:23 PM]: Jerry: Right now, the attempts to regulate this take place on the state level. This is a hangover from a previous era of financial infrastructure. It is difficult to require each and every Bitcoin company to obtain a monetary transmission license from each and every state that they want to legally operate in. Often, these state level licenses are costly to obtain and require knowing lawyers and also meeting a minimum capital requirement threshold.

[2:25 PM]: Jerry: Engaging regulators and getting regulation to come out with new and favorable laws to Bitcoin more quickly will only help the Bitcoin Industry. This is why it is important to be nice to lawmakers and to be honest with them. There needs to be a mutual understanding of how the technology at hand works in order to craft mutually beneficial regulation, which will meet the needs of both government, consumer protection, and entrepreneurs (who often currently operate under grey areas, and this often discourages action too).

[2:28 PM]: Jerry: Multi-Sig, the ability to give control to multiple parties at once, is a fundamentally new concept in IP and Property Law.

[2:29 PM]: Jerry: The Bitcoin community making friends with the legal community, being honest and genuine with them, needs to happen now. This will help protect Bitcoin in the event of a Black Swan event. This is what Coin Center does.

[2:32 PM]: Talk ends around a discussion over the ethics of “money laundering.” Jerry made it clear and the crowd acknowledged that money laundering is, in all cases, illegal. Someone in audience asks Jerry why he is not fighting to change this. Jerry made a brilliant point, that I 100% agree with; money laundering is illegal and will always continue to be illegal. It is for our collective safety, and it makes sense. Rather than trying to fight against this reality, the Bitcoin community should embrace it and form partnerships and have insightful discussions with regulators.

[2:38 PM]: Talk by Josh Dykgraaf, Freelance Art Director, on Bitcoin Branding begins. As Josh put it, “The (Bitcoin) logo should instill the confidence and perceived security of a bank… The logo needs to appeal to both developers and soccer moms equally.” Right now this clearly is not the case.

[2:51 PM]: Josh: Mastercard’s logo, two overlapping circles, is simple, technologically thought provoking, and ignites feelings around security and trust within us. It instills confidence in users due to the trust that people have in the brand. An attempt in 2010 to change their logo failed.

[2:53 PM]: Josh: “Mass adoption will be much easier if Bitcoin has the right Branding.”

[2:54 PM]: Talk by Jason King, founder of Sean’s Outpost and Unsung.org. Jason has recently ran across America, from Miami to San Francisco, to help raise awareness around and money for the homeless population.

[2:55 PM]: Jason: “This is my third time here. Moe [Levin] puts on the best conferences in the space.”

[2:56 PM]: Our country throws away millions of pounds of food per year. To address this, Jason has created a sharing-economy based application to share “excess” food and help feed the homeless.

[2:58 PM]: Jason: Often times, restaurant owners have to pay to throw away their own food. They have to pay a specialized professional to pick it up and throw it away. This, additionally, is also costly because the restaurant paid for the food too.

[3:00 PM]: Jason: “Our tagline here is ‘Hack Hunger’.” This received a loud applause from the audience. Jason said that they are helping to game-ify the space by showing leaderboards which in turn put form a social pressure on others to donate their excess food to those who are hungry.

[3:04 PM]: Bitcoin Regulation Panel now starting. Marco Santori, who I walked by earlier, is now on stage with Jerry Brito and Veronica McGregor.

[3:27 PM]: Marco: “Bitcoin is only perceived as a good tool for money laundering. It is not actually a good tool for money laundering.”

[3:33 PM]: Marco: “Remember when we used to call this ‘Bitcoin 2.0’, not ‘Blockchain technology’?”

[3:50 PM]: Marshall Long, CTO of Final Hash, now is speaking. “Mining is not supposed to be a profits game. It is supposed to be a zero sum game.” These words, this realization, really resonated with me, as I first came to this realization earlier today. “Whoever creates the best chicken shed for miners wins the game, right now.”

[3:51 PM]: Marshall: In China, mining companies can obtain subsidized electricity through the local government.

[3:52 PM]: Marshall: Development in mining chips has advanced quickly of late. This, in my personal opinion, has been a huge factor in the recent difficulty increase and subsequent price rise over the past 5 months.

Evening

[4:42 PM]: Paying attention to TNABC, Day 2 again now. Feels good to finally be done with that blog post.

[4:45 PM]: The current and also final speaker, Dean, is the President of the Blockchain Education Network (BEN), which was formerly known as College Crypto-currency Network (CCN). I watched CCN start at the University of Michigan. It was really cool seeing it transform from an idea to “Michigan Bitcoiners” in Ann Arbor to CCN being featured in the Wall Street Journal.

[4:46 PM]: Dean: “Our generation will change the world.”

[4:48 PM]: #GenerationBlockchain. This is the first time in my life that I have ever seen this hashtag used. I love it.

[4:49 PM]: Dean: All modern and new financial applications must be global. Given the behavior of young people, this is the only form of financial possibility that is in-alignment with the way that they are used to sharing information (and money is a form of information, too).

[4:57 PM]: Moe Levin now for closing remarks.

[4:57 PM]: Moe (paraphrased): We are now ready for a new form of currency that is in alignment with our heavy-travel-style lives.

[4:58 PM]: Moe: “One of the aims of this conference was to set the direction for the coming year, and I think we have done that.”

[4:59 PM]: “Bitcoin is on the bring of monumental change. We are that change. We are the future of this industry… We are the agents of that change. Thank you guys!”

This weekend, I am in Miami for The North American Bitcoin Conference. This is the third Bitcoin Conference that I have ever attended; the first was in Chicago in June 2014, the second was in San Diego last month. I am incredibly excited to be here. Every Bitcoin conference or Meetup I have ever attended has been three things; informative, uplifting, and nerdy. There’s nothing better than being able to Nerd-Out with the other Bitcoiners present. As you likely know, it is very difficult to have deep conversations about Bitcoin usually!

Over the next two days, I’ll be providing an Hour-By-Hour look into the craziness that is a huge Bitcoin Conference. TNABC does a great job running these events, sourcing top quality speakers from around the industry, and getting the word out for the best and brightest to attend. This should provide some good insight into the current state of and trends within the Bitcoin Industry. So, here we go. Below is a running recap and summary of TNABC in Miami, January 21st-22nd, 2016.

[9:12 AM]: Get to Miami Beach Convention Center, realize that the conference isn’t actually here. It’s at the James L. Knight Convention Center in downtown Miami, not Miami Beach.

[9:46 AM]: Finally arrive at the right location. Pay in United States Dollars. Run into John Scianna, a bitcoin entrepreneur who I only knew through Facebook and by-name. Discuss our current work in-person for our first time.

[10:01 AM]: Arrive at check-in location for the conference. Said hi to Moe Levin, who I met in 2014 at TNABC in Chicago. Was informed that my name is not on the press pass list. Mention how Caleb Chen approved a press pass for me. Get into the conference for free.

[10:04 AM]: Bump into Caleb at the table for Ledger, “The Bitcoin Security Company,” as their slogan goes. Talked to the team for a bit. Learned that Ledger is creating hardware wallets which store your private keys in them. This is essentially a form of cold storage. Saw a demonstration of how one of these work. Ledger also had 4 blockchain-enabled debit cards on display. The wallet is paired with “companion apps,” which are a user-friendly interface for detailing the transactions. The intention behind these products is to give Bitcoin a physical element that people can relate to, similar to their house keys. Ledger sold their hardware wallets on site; planning to buy one with Bitcoin later today.

[10:05 AM]: See David Ripley of Glidera from afar. I first met David in late 2013 at a Bitcoin Meetup in Chicago when Glidera was just starting. David was deep in conversation with someone. It is amazing to see Glidera doing well.

[10:10 AM]: Talk to t0, a team lead by Patrick Byrne aiming to decrease settlement costs and inefficiencies. Was told that the team recently conducted the world’s first documented Bond transaction on a blockchain. Was told that the team is working closely with the SEC to enable trading of other securities on this platform, including the shorting of stocks.

[10:13 AM]: Actual-overheard the following comment while walking between booths, while overhearing a conversation about Bitcoin and its potential applications in the Marijuana industry: “But where do you get the cannabis?”

[10:14 AM]: Talk to the team at Block C, a mining services company for less experienced Bitcoin Miners as well as those looking for American based options. Was told that there has been concern recently in the Mining community about centralization of mining power and also about the over centralization on Chinese or Hong Kong based Mining operations. Block C provides the opportunity to run a Bitcoin miner for you in proportion to the amount you invest. Additionally, if you want them to run an old or new Bitcoin miner for you, you can drop it off at their offices and they will run it for you. They are not a mining pool, I was told, because they structure their mining investments in ways that aren’t pooled. Yes, they partner with other pools, but each miner at Block C is run individually. Seems to be a low barrier to entry here for anyone looking to get involved in mining; seems to be run by competent people.

[10:25 AM]: Spoke with the team at DASH. DASH is an impressive and ambitious endeavor, aimed at providing an alternative to Bitcoin with better incentive structures built in for the community. I was told that the Bitcoin network has ~200x more processing power now than Google, and that this infrastructure should be used for incentives “other than providing transactional security,” other than rewarding the coinbase to only miners. As their pamphlet reads, “Dash is an open-source project that delivers safe decentralized financial solutions.” DASH provides incentive structures which reward many parties involved for the coinbase component of a block-reward, not just the miners. We discussed how rewarding solely the miners encourages centralization of mining, and it doesn’t build in strong incentives to reward the rest of the community. I was told that the Bitcoin network only has 5800 full-nodes running at this point, while the DASH network has 4000 full-nodes running; through the unique incentives that Dash provides, the hope is that it will encourage a healthier network and more full-nodes on the DASH network than on Bitcoin in the long run. Additionally, DASH had a really sweet looking soda-vending machine that can be used for purchase with DASH (coins). Another unique feature of their network is InstantX, which provides instant transaction confirmations that supposedly confirm payments within 1-4 seconds!

[10:38 AM]: Run into John, who I met at the Bitcoin Conference in San Diego last month. He is still working on his Local Bitcoins business and also offers educational and consulting services. He spent so much time on his Bitcoin work last semester that it significantly hurt his grades.

[10:41 AM]: After a flurry of talks, was flustered. Run to the sign-in table asking where the actual talks and panels for the conference are. Ask where is a good place to work.

[10:42 AM]: Literally bump into Mate Tokay, CEO of Bitcoinist, who I had met originally at the Conference in San Diego last month, out of nowhere. Mate was in from Hungary and we talked briefly about what was up with our lives. Mate and Caleb saw the potential in me, believed in me, and helped give me this opportunity to write.

[10:44 AM]: Post up at the Bitcoinist table in the atrium next to the room where the conference is. Meet Scott, a.k.a. “Talon”, who I had been corresponding with over Telegram for the past month. Had a spirited, 20-minute conversation about Bitcoinist and the successes of the site recently.

[10:59 AM]: Finally downloaded the AirBitz app. This is the best iPhone Bitcoin wallet I have ever seen to-date. I am impressed by it’s simplicity.

[11:01 AM]: Mate pays me in Bitcoin for the commission I earned for my first sale for Bitcoinist, which was a $45 press release that I sold last week. We discussed how awesome it was that Bitcoinist pays employees in Bitcoin. Mate showed me the basics of how to use the AirBitz app.

[11:10 AM]: The Bitcoin transaction from Mate confirmed to the blockchain. 16,902.08 Bits, which equates to exactly $7.

[11:46 AM]: Moe Levin swings by the Bitcoinist table. He is looking for an additional speaker for the panel on Bitcoin in the media. Mate and Scott volunteer to speak on the panel as needed.

[11:48 AM]: All caught up, finally wrote everything up to this point.

Afternoon

[12:05 PM]: Tone Vays, Bitcoin technical trading expert, walks up to the Bitcoinist table. He recognized me from the conference in San Diego because I spoke with him briefly there and also asked questions during his talk. Tone described Bitcoin trading as “a sandbox of trading with random quicksand holes.” Tone also said that Bitcoin may be overpriced currently because we are still waiting for another wave of users to the like that we saw in 2013. Tone feels that 2013 was unprecedented in terms of the amount of new-users who joined the Bitcoin community that year.

[12:14 PM]: Random comment overheard among people leaving the talks and the panel: “they switched and started talking about the block-size debate.” Also, “even Factom started talking about the block-size debate.” In my opinion, these “debates” are actually healthy for the community, because they bring more people into the decision-making-discussion.

[12:23 PM]: Spoke with Joe Colangelo from Consumers’ Research (established in 1919). Joe informed me that tomorrow after his talk he is releasing a Whitepaper around mechanisms and processes for the insurance industry and legal community to follow when working-with Bitcoin or Blockchain companies. We spoke about how important it is for the Bitcoin community to work with regulators and the legal community, not “against” them. We spoke about how impactful blockchain technology will be in the years ahead. Joe said that he is involved in the space because he wants to tell his children he helped play a part in this-thing-that-changed-the-world, and that whether he was successful or not he wanted to be involved.

[12:31 PM]: Random, older gentleman walks up to the table. My intuition said that he was from here in Miami. He was wearing a pressed blazer, and had an immaculate watch on. Our table had caught his attention because it said “Bitcoin.com”. This gentleman asked us, “Where can I get some Bitcoin? I want some Bitcoin and I do not know much about it.” We explained to him how he was in the right place, a Bitcoin Conference, and that on Bitcoin.com he could find exchanges listed where he can obtain Bitcoin from.

[12:37 PM]: Lunch time… Chicken Fingers!!!!!

[12:45 PM]: Get yelled at for not realizing that the Chicken Fingers were $2 per finger.

[12:53 PM]: After waiting in line to pay, got to the front of the line. The credit card machine that the conference center was using did not work very well. It was taking a long time for people to pay. The woman working the cashier had to talk to two managers to figure out how to get the credit card machine to work. They tried to funnel everyone using cash to the front of the line. Being that this is at a Bitcoin Conference, it was truly hilarious to watch. Someone behind me in line said, “This is hilarious!” And ironic, too.

[1:04 PM]: An information systems professor from Florida International University comes over to the Bitcoinist booth. He starts talking about how he conducts a lot of his research around Bitcoin, and has analyzed price movements and potential of the Blockchain.

[1:06 PM]: Scott mentioned off-hand that he saw Nick Szabo speak at a conference in Las Vegas recently. He said that Nick was reserved and brilliant, and that his presentation was really cool.

[1:15 PM]: Heading into panel on Media in Bitcoin. Caleb and Mate participating in the panel along with Pete Rizzo of CoinDesk.

[1:19 PM]: Discussion around the centralization of Bitcoin mining. Discussion around the different large mining operations currently going on around the world.

[1:20 PM]: Pete discusses how CoinDesk wants to bridge the gap between “corporate”/”traditional” companies and the bitcoin community. And that everyone, even the leaders of more “traditional” companies, have important ideas to contribute to the larger Bitcoin discussion.

[1:21 PM]: Caleb says that the Bitcoin media sector has re-branded in the past 3 years, which I agree with. What previously was writing for just-bitcoiners, now is spanning towards a larger, tech-focused audience. Use of the term “Blockchain” is a means to make the FinTech community feel more welcomed.

[1:24 PM]: Pete: we (the Bitcoin media sector) need less news; we need to focus on providing better quality news. If the bitcoin community doesn’t spend enough time to teach mainstream audiences the basics of bitcoin technology, Pete says, then it will be harmful for bitcoin in the long run. This is why there is so much misinformation (labeling bitcoin as “a failure”) being written now about the block size debate.

[1:29 PM]: Mate makes point about how mainstream media still largely doesn’t understand Bitcoin. I agree with this, and feel that the entire community needs to continue to play a collective roll in educating people about bitcoin and blockchains. Mate’s example; “When there’s a server outage at a prominent site, it is not written that ‘the internet is dead’.”

[1:36 PM]: Pete: If you have something that’s an actual story, that’s creative and that goes beyond simply reporting, then this will be read. This is not “content.” This is a way to produce great and engaging ideas, ones that will build the brand of that website.

[1:38 PM]: Caleb: A lot of people in the media industry are hoping that micro-transactions and tipping will replace advertising. This, as Pete later pointed out, is a very difficult behavior to begin to induce in most people as they are then paying for something that they used to receive for free.

[1:42 PM]: Pete: the industry is still in its early stages. The fact that institutions like banks are testing out blockchain technology is a great sign, but also demonstrate how far we collectively have to go.

[1:44 PM]: Pete: it’s up to the leaders in the space to create new technologies, to create new news that is inherently story-worthy.

[1:46 PM]: Pete: the bitcoin media sector has been very active in reaching out to, educating, engaging, and answering questions for more “traditional” companies. Scott says that bitcoin media companies do indeed field requests for information about bitcoin from “mainstream” media companies and larger companies, and quite often, too.

[1:51 PM]: Mate: the primary goal of Bitcoin media companies is to provide a healthy forum for discussion, to enable people and ideas to meet one another.

[1:56 PM]: Person in audience suggests micro-tipping for commenting sections of the site. Crowd really likes this idea, because they collectively dislike “trolls” in the comments section. Caleb points out how ZapChain and CoinJournal are already trying this out.

[1:57 PM]: Person in audience explains how newer users to Bitcoin and newer people to the Bitcoin community are often turned away, because they do not understand the basics of Bitcoin. Most people, as he puts it, have not gotten to “Step 1” in understanding Bitcoin. He made a great point that for the other 7 billion people on earth, it’s really difficult to get and internalize this new technology. This received applause from the audience. This person ended on the question; “what’s the one message that you as bitcoin media companies would have for everyone?

[1:58 PM]: Mate says that he thinks it’s too difficult to distill this into one sentence; points out how Bitcoin.com recently posted a 50-reasons to use Bitcoin post. Furthermore, Pete says that he feels that it is dangerous to take any one position here; he feels that media companies have a responsibility to view technology agnostically. Lastly, Caleb says that “bitcoin will do for money what the internet did for knowledge.”

[2:26 PM]: Finally found a charger to plug in my laptop and phone. I’ve been juggling like 3 things at once. Been overhearing a conversation between an investor and an entrepreneur pitching to him at an isolated table in a conference room next to where my charger is. Investor at one point says “everyday our clients are dealing with law enforcement. Everyday. And it is a major question of how to take the risks within, how to approach the risks that they’re taking… I work with law enforcement all the time.”

[2:29 PM]: See a model posing in a bikini next to a bitcoin vending machine. She was out of place; a conference of nerds didn’t necessitate models. I felt bad for her; that someone was subjecting her to do this, at a bitcoin conference. Then someone from the conference center yelled at her to put her dress back on.

[2:40 PM]: Spoke to the team at Bitso, the largest Mexican bitcoin exchange. Learned that some of their users are freelancers, and that the CEO used to be a freelancer himself. Discussed the bitcoin community in Mexico; was told it is smaller than that in America, and about 1-2 years behind in terms of its size and momentum. But that it is indeed there and it is a community that’s growing. We also discussed bitcoin media aimed at serving the Spanish speaking bitcoin community, a likely-underserved demographic. The 3 publications that were mentioned around this were El Bitcoin, Sobre Bitcoin, and NotiBitcoins.

[2:51 PM]: Spoke to the team at Clef, an application for getting around having to remember your passwords. Clef provides an interface which allows users to login without a password. This is done by scanning a QR-like code and signing off on the login with the actual-user’s private key. The team at Clef is great; I genuinely got along with them. We discussed the theoretical possibilities of blockchains allowing for fully decentralized identity verification. We discussed the block size debate and how bitcoin is software. I took one of their “Fuck Passwords” stickers.

[3:18 PM]: Bumped into Edwin of the College Cryptocurrency Network, a friend of mine who I knew from the bitcoin community at the University of Michigan. We both talked to the team from Clef some more, then caught up off to the side. Edwin told me how CCN switched its name to BEN (Blockchain Education Network). I told Edwin that as a CS Major and college sophomore he should be hustling hard here, meeting people, promoting himself, and looking for new opportunities.

[3:31 PM]: Waited to speak to Patrick Byrne one-on-one. Patrick was very friendly, a great listener, and was respectful to what I had to say. Patrick gave good advice about how to push forward difficult ideas. He recommended working hand-in-hand with the legal community. He also spoke positively of the potential for smart contracts.

[3:53 PM]: Sitting in a separate room off to the side again, charging my computer. Patrick Byrne walks in with a group of entrepreneurs and sits down at the table next to me and starts talking as part of a podcast. Discusses the realities of fiat money with the entrepreneurs. Discusses China and negative interest rates. Discusses how transparency in the Federal Reserve through a blockchain can, theoretically, be a means towards creating a freer society. Discusses the benefits of being an entrepreneur. Be your own boss and self-actualize, Patrick says. “View yourself as mankind’s public servant,” he says. Off to a talk featuring Bobby Lee (CEO of BTC China) now. Podcast with Patrick is still going on next to me.

[4:12 PM]: Bobby Lee’s talk actually hasn’t started yet (schedule is 10 minutes behind). Now in main auditorium at talk by Ledger CEO Eric Larcheveque. Eric discusses the potential and power of open source software. He discusses the advantages of hardware wallets, and how they’re more secure and people can relate to them better than digital wallets.

[4:18 PM]: Bobby Lee, CEO of BTC China, enters the stage. His talk is about to be on the potential for Bitcoin to function as a (global) reserve currency. Makes analogy to currency being like a house.

[4:22 PM]: Bobby defines money as a “Store of Value” and also having qualities including “stable, recognizable, rare, hard to counterfeit, hard to obtain, and it has to have a stable supply.”

[4:23 PM]: Bobby defines what a currency is; simply a legal classification or definition. He details how many people in the media confuse references to “money” and “currency.” Speaks to how gold was originally not backed by anything, and that this was okay, because gold was essentially all they had once “currency” was first starting off.

[4:28 PM]: Reserve currency is needed to give people confidence, Bobby says. Bobby views the idea of a “reserve currency” as an anchor, one which helps people not be too concerned about the fact that we use fiat money. The reserve currency is a counter-weight. Bobby: “Today, Gold is still the Reserve Currency, but Central Banks won’t openly admit that.”

[4:30 PM]: Bobby says that Bitcoin “is real money.” And that “We have now invented a digital form of the perfect money. And now, because of that, it (Bitcoin) is suitable for the future world of digital reserve currencies.”

[4:36 PM]: Next up, Brennen Byrne, CEO of Clef, gives talk making analogy of a CIA classified document from the 1950’s to the Hackathon Hacker’s ethos of today.

[4:41 PM]: Brennen: “If you look carefully in your logs, you will see that basic attacks like this will happen all the time”. Discusses how hackers scan for opportunity and then look for justification later.

[4:44 PM]: Brennen: Botnets, SQLi, DDoS cannons, Phone calls and emails to support are all main forms of attacks.

[4:45 PM]: Security tips from Brennen: Do not reinvent the wheel! Follow industry best practices. Use concentric circles of defense.

[4:48 PM]: Brain is hurting. Feeling tired. Should probably get some water soon or take a nap. Brennan’s talk just ended. One talk to go.

[4:50 PM]: Final talk of the day, by Patrick Deegan, starts. Patrick is the CTO of Personal Blackbox, a company putting forth solutions for decentralized identity and trust.

[4:55 PM]: Patrick: Distributed ledger technology can serve as the DNA of our identity and being online. Blockchains allow for this all to happen in a decentralized manner.

[4:57 PM]: Patrick: We need to create something that makes it easy for our grandparents to use and manage private keys. This is key, Patrick says. I agree with this wholeheartedly.

[5:14 PM]: Didn’t actually go to get water. Stayed to hear the Q&A with Patrick. Someone in audience asks about Homomorphic Encryption.

[5:18 PM]: Conference is declared officially over for the day by the host. Off to actually-get-that-water now.

I hope that everyone has enjoyed following along in today’s post. Bitcoin conferences, as you can see above, are fun, nerdy, and intertwined places for entrepreneurs to meet. They’re a great place to learn in general and also learn about new opportunities. I’d recommend going to one if you haven’t yet.

Moe Levin, the organizer of The North American Bitcoin Conference, has set up an excellent lineup of speakers and presenters for the 2016 show. This year, people like Patrick Byrne, Tone Vays, Bobby Lee, Jerry Brito and others will highlight a packed conference.

The 2016 conference will take place between January 21 and 22. The North American Bitcoin Conference is one of the largest events in the Bitcoin community, drawing in many attendees who come to see renowned figures in the Bitcoin space. In the past, Bitcoin giants such as Jeffrey Tucker, Tony Gallippi and Vitalik Buterin have spoken at the Miami conference. In fact, in 2014, Buterin made history by announcing his Ethereum project at a TNABC event.

Bitcoinist was able to interview Moe Levin about this year’s conference, and what we can expect from this monumental Bitcoin event.

The North American Bitcoin Conference has come full circle and will be back in Miami on Jan 21-22. What are some of the things you are looking forward to at this year’s event?

This is the highlight of the year for us and many people in the ecosystem. The Miami conference gives us time to reflect on the past year, and set the agenda and direction for the next year. I’m looking forward to having Patrick Byrne speaking at the conference. It will be his first time with us, and I’m looking forward to hearing his views on using the blockchain to increase transparency. A lot of what I’m looking forward to is seeing old friends and new friends reconnect and share their experiences over the last year, and work together to make a better tomorrow.

What are some of the changes you have seen over the last year that have impacted Bitcoin and the conferences?

There remains some difficulty achieving consensus among developers and companies about the direction bitcoin should take. There is no easy way to solve this, but the people at Scaling Bitcoin are making a great effort to get the right people in the room to discuss these tough topics.

From a conference perspective, 2015 was slower than 2014, certainly. In 2014, it seemed like there was a conference every other week, and that might have had to do with the great press and high price of bitcoin. As 2015 came around, it looked a bit bleak at times, and I think that translated into people spending more time working on product rather than travelling and collaborating and exploring new and alternative ideas.

I hope 2016 will include a stable rise of bitcoin, more collaboration, and lots of sun in bitcoin.

Patrick Byrne and Bobby Lee Head a Diverse Lineup of Speakers

Who are some of the key speakers you are excited about this year?

As mentioned above, Patrick Byrne is a great speaker and pioneer in so many different industries. Bobby Lee will be speaking and offers unique and important views about the ecosystem in China and developments in the region. We’ve got a great mining panel set up with Marco Streng from Genesis Miners, who continues to innovate and expand their operations. J Maurice, from Private Internet Access is one of the smartest CTOs in the space, and I’m really looking forward to hearing his talk about security and how to protect your privacy online. That’s a speech everyone should listen to.

How do you feel about the convergence of the blockchain and FinTech over the last year?

I think it’s a natural convergence that is still maturing. We won’t know if this convergence is working for at least another while, so best is to remain open and collaborative and support projects that lead to fulfilling some of the original promises of bitcoin. I’m most hopeful of some remittance startups using bitcoin as the backend to really make it big in 2016.

Do you have any announcements you are excited about this year?

There will be at least three huge product launches in Miami that I wish I could share with you.

What are some things we have not touched on yet that you would like to discuss?

Thank you Moe for the interview. TNABC Miami is shaking up to be an interesting one this year like the last. Moe teasing big announcements at the show should bring some life to the usual staid conference fair. Bitcoinist will be bringing you interviews with some of the participants as we close in on the show as well as coverage of it as it happens.

What presenters are you looking forward to at TNABC this year and what would you ask them? Let us know in the comments below!

The Bitcoin Investor conference has started at the premier Bitcoin accepting hotel in downtown Las Vegas – The D – following a strong presence for the bleeding edge technology at fintech conference Money 20/20. Just years ago, not even Satoshi Nakamoto or Nick Szabo (the creator of smart contracts), would have imagined that things would be moving forward on such a fast time scale.The event will run through October 29th and 30th and will feature many prominent Bitcoin companies and speakers. The D accepts Bitcoin for hotel bookings and even at their gift store. That’s right, you can buy alcohol with Bitcoin and it’s not a problem. Started by Steven Michaels, the event’s twitter handle is @Bitcoin_Up, which is very poignant given the recent double digit percentage rise in the Bitcoin price. Bitcoinist is proud to bring live coverage from the event so follow along at @Bitcoinist.

Having the conference following the fintech conference Money20/20 has allowed the Bitcoin Investor conference to capture some overflow from the increasingly Blockchain-hungry bankers, as well as some very powerful speakers. Some of the Bitcoin investors that will be speaking at the event include Chris Odom, Daniel Krawisz, Joseph VaughnPerling, Justin Newton, Michael Terpin, Paul Puey, Paul Rosenberg, Peter Earle, Steven Michaels, Bitcoin Belle, Tone Vays, Trace Mayer, Stephanie Murphy, PhD, Dr. Brian Sovryn, and many more.

A special guest speaker has planned to present at the conference and is sure to generate a lot of buzz. Investors in the Bitcoin space have been chomping at the bit, pardon the pun, for fresh opportunities. Bitcoin’s blockchain technology is seeing fresh new attention from banking giants and credit card behemoths. The world’s financial institutions, like NASDAQ and Barclays, are now using it openly.

We’re now less than 6 weeks from Money 20/20, the industry’s primetime conference and trade show. Spaces are filling up and time is running out so we wanted to make one last call for companies interested in sponsoring or exhibiting.

With 10,000+ attendees, including more than 1,000+ CEOs, from 3,000+ companies and 75 countries, expected at our 2015 U.S. event, Money 20/20 is critical to realizing the vision of disruptive ways in which consumers and businesses manage, spend and borrow money.

MONEY 20/20 IS THE WIDELY ACKNOWLEDGED INDUSTRY-STANDARD PLATFORM FOR YOU TO:

Raise Brand Awareness

Develop Partnerships

Launch New Products or Companies

Make Major Announcements

Fundraise or Source Investments

Learn about the Latest and Most Impactful Disruptions

Money 20/20 Always Provides QUALITY, QUANTITY, VITALITY

Unprecedented Scope, Scale & Success

We’ve experienced incredible growth since our inaugural 2012 event and we’re maintaining that momentum as the industry continues to consolidate around Money20/20. Money20/20 is unique in delivering the most senior audience of geographically diverse decision makers who represent every key sector and size of organization in an increasingly complex payments and financial services ecosystem.

Money20/20 • 19 W 44th Street, Suite 1108 • New York, NY 10036

LEADING MEDIA PRESENCE

Last year, 150+ journalists covering 100+ announcements generated 450+ original articles on-site at Money20/20. Attending media includes payments, banking, retail, security, and other trade publications, mainstream and leading television networks, covering the latest trends and topics as well as the newest companies and product launches.